Google will be offering free dark web monitoring to all consumer account holders starting at the end of this month. Consumers can set up alerts to get notified if their personal information appears on the dark web.
The dark web is a hidden part of the internet used by hackers to sell personal information from attacks on websites and medical facilities. While being aware of personal information on the dark web is useful, individuals will need to take action to protect themselves once they find out.
The Identity Theft Resource Center reported a 118% increase in job scams carried out through websites and a 60% rate of Google Voice scams in reported identity crimes last year. To access the monitoring go to Google’s “Results about you” page, which currently lets users sign up for alerts if their personal information appears in search results.
Google Pages:
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Monitor Page: https://myactivity.google.com/results-about-you?hl=en
How to setup dark web alerts:
Step 1: Find results about you
Go to “Results about you” page.
In the Google app:
Log in to the Google app.
To open the menu, click your Google Account avatar.
From the menu, select Results about you.
From mobile web or desktop:
Log in to your Google account.
To open the menu, click your Google Account avatar.
From the menu, select Manage your Google Account and then Data & privacy.
In the “History settings,” select My Activity and then Other activity.
Scroll down to the “Results about you” section, and select “Manage results about you.”
Select Get started or Settings.
Enter your name and the contact info that you want to find in search results.
Google uses this information to check for search results that show this info.
You can choose to receive email notifications if Google finds results with your contact info. You can also receive push notifications through the Google app.
If you have notifications on, you’ll receive a notification to let you know if the results match your info. After that, you’ll receive a new notification when new results are found that match your contact info.
Step 2: Review results about you
If you have notifications on, you’ll get a notification within a few hours to let you know if any search results matched your name and personal contact info. You can also check directly from the “Results about you” page.
To view your results, from the “Results about you” page, go to the “Results to review” tab.
When you select a result, you can learn more about it, like the website it’s from, or the contact info it contains.
Step 3: Request removal of results about you
If you see a result that you’d rather keep private, you can request to remove it from search results.
To remove more than one result, select the checkbox next to each result and then Request to remove.
To remove a single result, select the result to expand and then Request to remove.
If you don’t want to start a removal request, you can also choose “Mark as reviewed.”
Google considers some results valuable to the public. These can include government or educational websites, online newspapers, or business websites. If your result is from a website like this, you won’t find a “Remove result” option.
To confirm your removal request and for status updates when your request has been reviewed, you’ll get an email. You can check the status of your requests anytime from “Results about you” under “Removal requests.”
-Michael
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